Nesting - fabric bowl tutorial

Don't get too comfortable Flitter - the nest is about to get very crowded. (Slight Cesarean accident involving unpicking a seam and accidentally cutting off the corner of the tail has delayed his sister's arrival.)

The nest was very easy and rewarding to make. I tossed around with a few ideas

• hexagon base with 5 sides - this is the bowls you find on google
• a round base with a rectangular side.
• a variation of a fabric ball

I went for the latter. Incidentally the bird pattern (care of little EGGie)is also a variation of the fabric ball.

The only vital point is the angle of the points otherwise it's very adjustable. If you extend the sides of the pointy ends you will get a bowl with a bigger base and if you extend the long parallel lines you'll get a taller bowl.
1. Cut this shape out 6 times along the grain so that it doesn't distort. In this case I did some fabric piecing first so ignored the whole grain issue).
2. Sew it up the same as for the fabric ball. Here's a tute. But basically you sew three pieces together. Then sew the other 3 pieces together. You then put one half sphere inside the other half so that the right sides are touching and sew it up leaving a small gap for turning quite close too one end. Pin carefully first so that you get all of your points touching. Pull one end through the hole so that you have a deflated ball.

3. Now if you're making a ball you'd stuff and sew it shut. For a nest / bowl collapse the top half of the ball into the lower half. I chose to have the opening on the outside. This gives your nest an inside and an outside. I then pinned where the points meet on the inside and the outside together and top stitched a small border around the rim to hold it together. You could do a few stitches where you pinned.

4. I then closed the gap I left for turning with kind of a whip stitch. I'm not really good at closing softies and the like.

The inside:
The outside: A home for Flitter:

I can see myself making a few more fabric bowls. Wouldn't they look pretty holding all of the girls' little things.

Oh and in case you missed it here's Moonshine's ball. She does play with it. It has quite a nice roll.